Adventures in Womanhood

Nightmares

I have nightmares about dying this way,
spread-eagled from the force
of the triumphant bloodrush
my uterus expels.
Or else hunched over,
my face a study of concentration
then horror
as, uncontrollably,
a life is expunged

Or, worse, I have nightmares
of losing this way
where I will wake up
screaming in terror
and bloodstains
and frantically try to
recreate the remnants
of what was once whole and growing and mine
that is now dark
and slippery
and lost.